There were 60 minutes of hockey played on Friday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

But before we get to the other 59 minutes and 55 seconds that went into the Calgary Flames’ 5-1 win over the New York Rangers, we’ve got to focus on the goal that got things started.

It was a special one, after all.

Just under 10 minutes into the first period, Matthew Tkachuk collected the puck behind the Flames’ (44-20-7) and casually flipped the puck down ice.

It sailed over the entire Rangers (28-30-13) team and bounced right before the opposing blue line where a streaking Johnny Gaudreau stretched out, gained control around 90 feet from the spot where it had left Tkachuk’s stick and then unleashed a dirty deke around New York Rangers netminder Alexander Georgiev.

Pick your superlative. It was pretty, it was dirty – in a good way — and it was the type of goal that will be on every end-of-season highlight reel.

“Yeah, it was unbelievable,” said Flames winger Michael Frolik. “I think (Tkachuk) saw with his eyes that Johnny was leaving the zone, and that flip-pass was crazy. Even on the (ice), it kind of stops and it went to his stick … and Johnny made a nice move there. It was great vision, a great pass and a great play.”

It was a beautiful goal, but it was also an important one as it got the Flames rolling and helped them collect two points that edge them past the San Jose Sharks and back into first place in the NHL’s Pacific Division with 11 games left on the schedule for both teams.

The goal also showed that Gaudreau’s six-point explosion on Tuesday night against the New Jersey Devils wasn’t a one-off and that the Flames really have found the scoring touch that seemed to have deserted them a week-and-a-half ago.

Tkachuk has been front-and-centre for much of this mini-offensive resurgence.

The wonder-assist gave him just the first of five points — two goals and three assists — he would collect on Friday night, and the 10 points he’s picked up in the Flames’ past three games is as many as he compiled in his previous 21.

While Gaudreau’s six-point evening earlier this week drew the headlines, Tkachuk had a hat-trick and an assist against the Vegas Golden Knights last Sunday, scored another against the Devils two nights later and was the best player on the ice Friday.

It was an impressive night all-round, but the assist on Gaudreau is going to be the one that gets replayed again and again.

Deep down, Tkachuk probably knows that’s true, but he deferred credit to Gaudreau when the media asked him about the play after the game.

“Honestly, I think that the highlight about it was Johnny beat the (defenceman Neal Pionk) ,” Tkachuk said modestly. “They were together, maybe (Gaudreau) was even behind him and he kind of roasted him with speed there and (the puck) honestly bounced really fortunate. I don’t know, I think the highlight should be that move he made on Georgiev.”

Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not, but Tkachuk’s performance on Friday night will surely be what is talked about in NHL circles on Saturday morning.

After his Hail Mary helper on Gaudreau’s opener, Tkachuk then tipped-in a Mark Giordano shot just 2:56 into the second period to give the Flames a 2-1 lead — Neal Pionk had evened things up for the Rangers midway through the first frame.

A couple minutes later, Tkachuk was back to playing provider when he found Garnet Hathaway right in front of the Rangers net. The fourth-liner neatly slotted the puck past Georgiev, who stopped 26 of the 31 shots he faced.

With David Rittich standing tall in net for the Flames and turning away 22 of the 23 shots the Rangers fired at him, there was little reason to believe the visitors would be able to crawl back into the game when the teams went to their dressing rooms at the end of the second period.

It certainly didn’t help the Rangers’ cause that the Flames came out in the third looking to finish the job.

“I thought we did a good job in the third period,” said Flames head coach Bill Peters. “I think we came in wanting it to be our best period, and I think it was.”

Tkachuk was again right in the middle of all of it.

First, he fed Michael Frolik in close to make it 4-1 just 5:12 into the third.

Then, he put the finishing touches on a dominant performance when he neatly accepted a pass from Mikael Backlund and fired into an essentially empty net to make it 5-1.

Game. Set. Match.

Unfortunately for the Flames, Friday’s game wasn’t without bad news, as first-line centre Sean Monahan departed the game at the end of the first period and did not return.

Afterwards, Peters said Monahan had come down with an illness similar to the one that had kept goaltender Mike Smith out of practice on Thursday and would not be travelling with the Flames for Saturday night’s matchup with the host Winnipeg Jets (5 p.m., Sportsnet West/Sportsnet 960 The Fan) because the team wants to avoid any possibility of the bug spreading to other players.

SHARK WATCHING?

The Flames are paying attention to the San Jose Sharks whenever their NHL Pacific Division rivals take the ice.

How much they’re paying attention seems to vary, though.

Head coach Bill Peters was pretty emphatic about wanting his players to focus on their own games instead of getting overly pre-occupied by the points the Sharks may or may not be collecting.

It’s a little hard to completely tune it out, though, and the Flames admitted Friday that they’d been keeping tabs on the Sharks’ 4-2 loss to the Florida Panthers on Thursday.

“You tune in a little bit and obviously check the scores throughout the night and I think, probably, everyone’s doing that right now,” said Flames centre Sean Monahan.

Because the Sharks play on the West Coast, most of the Flames aren’t staying up late to watch their rivals’ entire games.

But they’re paying attention, there’s no doubt about that.

The Sharks overtook the Flames and were holding a one-point lead atop the Pacific Division heading into Friday’s action, but the Flames had a game-in-hand thanks to the San Jose crew’s loss on Thursday.

“I try and see the score, for sure, at the end of the game,” said Flames captain Mark Giordano. “Tough to night-in, night-out be watching games and stuff like that, but for sure we look at the results and for us it’s an opportunity (against the Rangers) to get these two points and move ahead.”

With the third-place Vegas Golden Knights looking like a nightmare of a first-round opponent, winning the Pacific Division and getting a presumably easier matchup against a wild card team feels even more important than it might otherwise.

And with the race as tight as it is, it’s inevitable that the Sharks are going to get some of the Flames’ attention.

“You don’t want to get too caught up in scoreboard watching,” said Flames winger Matthew Tkachuk. “You do naturally, but you don’t really go out of your way to do it. No need for added stress in your life.”

The one person who seemed to prefer that the Flames not pay any attention to the Sharks was Peters.

“(Games) come on at 5 o’clock here in the west, so you can watch hockey from 5 p.m. until 1 (a.m) if you want, or you can go about your own business and concentrate on your own team — and that’s what we do,” Peters said. “Some guys will know (the score). They might have had it on when they were in stretching and figured it out, but we don’t go about that scoreboard-watching.

“We’re lucky enough to be in a situation where we don’t have to.”

NOT SO HEATED

Tkachuk and Rangers winger Brendan Lemieux have a little history with one another and have never much seemed to get along.

But when he was asked about whether he thought the two might have trouble during Friday’s game, Tkachuk pretty much just dismissed the possibility.

“I didn’t even think about it,” Tkachuk said. “I honestly forgot he was on the Rangers. You don’t get caught up in the personal stuff at this time of the year, it’s all about the wins.”

Lemieux came close to dropping the gloves near the end of the first period of Friday’s game, but his potential opponent for the scrap wasn’t Tkachuk.

It was Garnet Hathaway.

But the linesman jumped in before the two could really start to throw down — although Lemieux and Andrew Mangiapane did manage to give each other a shot as the whole thing was being separated.

NOT BUYING IT

On paper, Friday’s game looked like a gimme for the Flames.

The Rangers have nothing to play for in the standings, after all, and had already lost to both the Vancouver Canucks and the Edmonton Oilers on their Western Canadian road swing.

But Tkachuk dismissed the idea that the Rangers — or any other team — might already be thinking about their summer vacation plans.

“You could easily go into a game and play a team that’s out of the playoffs a little bit and (think) they’re just going to roll over, but teams don’t do that,” Tkachuk said. “If a team does that, then the players shouldn’t be playing. We were in that position last year and had guys coming up who were fighting for spots (on this year’s roster).”

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